A Brief Description of Sickle Cell Anemia

Sickle Cell Anemia is a genetic disease which can only be caused by both parents passing the sickle cell gene down to their offspring. About 2 million Americans carry the Sickle Cell gene but don’t have the disease. If two people with the gene marry, there’s a one in four chance that their children can end up having the disease. The gene is common with African, Spanish, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Indian people. In the United States, Sickle Cell Anemia affects 1 in every 500 African American children born, and 1 in every 900 Hispanic children born.

The diagnosis for the disease is straightforward. All states screen newborns for sickle cell. This can be done by a simple blood test. The treatment for sickle cell anemia is minimal. There are no cures for the disease. However treatments and pain killers can help with some of the symptoms. There are a few environmental factors of sickle cell. For example people with the disease should avoid cold areas so that their blood flow stays normal. They should also make sure that they have good circulation at all times to ensure that the blood is moving. All in all, sickle cell is a simple disease that does not take much to deal

Diagnosis of this disease is done by blood test. Prenatal screening and Newborn screenings include test for sickle cell anemia. Other tests that can be performed include: Complete Blood Count, blood smear, isoelectric focusing, high-performance liquid chromatography, DNA analysis, sickle solubility, and Hemoglobin electrophoresis. Only HbB0 can be found on an electrophoresis (Maakaron MD, 2014). Because children with SCA are at a higher risk of infections and other health problems, early diagnosis and treatment are essential.

Sickle cell anemia (SCA) is an inherited disorder that produces sickle or crescent shape red blood cells. Thus, the mutated erythrocytes result in an inadequate supply of oxygen being transported throughout the body. Research shows that among those affected the most with the sickle cell gene are African Americans. In recent years, we have seen a decrease in mortality and morbidity rates as a result of new approaches to treating the disease. The more we understand the pathophysiology of sickle cell anemia, the more we learn about developing therapies for genetic disorders such as SCA. In this paper, we will briefly discuss what sickle cell anemia is and possible treatments for people with sickle cell anemia such as gene therapy and new drugs.

Sickle Cell Disease, also referred to as SCD, is a genetically inherited disease that causes abnormal hemoglobin, called hemoglobin S or sickle hemoglobin, in red blood cells. This disease currently affects about 90,000-100,000 Americans, a majority being African-American. Because SCD is genetically inherited, it is not contagious. It is inherited when both parents of a child carry the sickle cell trait, also called SCT. SCT and SCD are not the same. In SCT, the person is generally healthy and does not endure what one with SCD does, they are simply a “carrier” of the sickle cell trait. SCD cannot be inherited if only one parent is a carrier. If both parents are carriers of the sickle cell trait, the child still only has a 25% chance of being born with sickle cell. They have a 50% chance of being born with a single trait, making them a carrier, and a 25% chance of being born with normal hemoglobin. About 1 in 13 African-American babies are born as a carrier and 1 in 365 are born with the disease.

Sickle cell anemia has been a huge or major controversy in the united states ever since 1973 until today. It is an inherited disease that affects the red blood cells.

While people are trying to find a breakthrough cure for diseases such as Cancer, Sickle Cell patients feel that they are left in the dark of the public’s eye. Each day thousands of people are being faced with the shocking truth of having to live a very hard, tiresome, and very painful life. According to researchers about one in four hundred African American is affected with Sickle Cell. Therefore it is felt that there should be a greater effort in trying to find a cure for this disease.

The disorders for Sickle Cell Anemia is mutation, autosomal recessive, and blood loss. The chromosomes traveled from one parent to another which mean it's a positive chance the child will have that disease. Also that

I chose to research sickle cell anemia in public health because I wanted to see how a disease can affect its community. I also chose sickle cell anemia because it is a disease very close to me, my whole family has the trait and my two youngest brothers have the disease. More of my family and individuals in Africa are getting sickle cell anemia and I believe it is because they are not tested and or educated about it. Sickle Cell Anemia is diagnosed at birth. It is diagnosed by a simple blood test to see whether the patient was sickle hemoglobin. In the United States, all states make testing mandatory for all newborn babies. This is not the case in African countries. They do not have the funds to do screenings in the first place which is very

Sickle cell disease, SCD, is an inherited autosomal recessive genetic disorder that affects 1 in 500 Americans of West African descent with one in 12 African Americans and one in 100 Hispanics being carriers (“Learning.” 2014). SCD is prevalent in individuals with origins in equatorial countries, such as central Africa, Near East, Mediterranean area, and in parts of India (McCance, 2010). Sickle cell anemia, sickle cell-thalassemia, and sickle cell-Hb C are all forms of sickle cell disease with sickle cell anemia being the most severe. Within the general population there is a 0.7% chance of two African American parents having a child with sickle cell anemia, a 1 in 800 birth risk for sickle cell-Hb C, and 1 in 1700 birth risk for sickle- cell thalassemia (2010). The incidence of sickle cell trait carriers can range from 7% to 13% in blacks and up to 45% in people from Eastern Africa. In comparison to the other forms of SCD, sickle cell anemia is present in a homozygous form. Individuals are considered to be sickle cell trait carriers when they inherit Hb S from one parent and normal hemoglobin from the other parent, these individuals rarely present with any clinical manifestations (2010).

The prevalence of sickle cell disease in the US is falling. This is contributed to low malaria rates as sickle cell disease is disadvantageous and is declining due to natural selection. There is also decreased endogamy in the United States compared to African countries, which plays a role in the trend of falling sickle cell diseased

This disease is a genetic disease and it is hereditary. It is inherited as an autosomal recessive disease. This means that in order to get the gene you must receive a recessive trait from your mother and your father. The parents could both be heterozygous for the trait and therefore not have the disease, but instead they would both be a carrier. There are only a few ways that the parents could possibly pass the trait. One possibility of having a child with sickle-cell disease is if both parents are heterozygous and they both pass on their recessive allele, (25% chance for offspring to have sickle-cell disease). Another possibility

Sickle Cell Anemia was the first diagnosed disease that was linked to the hemoglobin protein and genetically characterized. In 1910 Sickle cell disease was first characterized when Dr. B. Herrick wrote a report about a patient who suffered from a "strange disease" including such symptoms as asthmatic conditions and blood flow problems including body ulcers.

In the United States, 1 in 400 African-American newborns have the disease; other people affected include Hispanics, people of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent, and Asians. 2 Sickle cell anemia exists at birth, but sometimes many infants don 't show any signs or symptoms until after 4 months of age or older.

I am a sickle cell anemia patient and I have experienced almost all the complications stated above. From a patient’s perspective, and with my participation in support and advocacy groups in relation to SCD, I can say with some level of certainty that anemia, vaso-occlusive pain crisis (when the circulation of blood in blood vessels is obstructed by sickled red blood cells, causing ischemic injuries and organ damage) and infections are the root of all evil in SCD